


This is Gary's Arctic winter diary 2004-2005
September 29th,
2004
- October 9th, 2004 |
October
12th, 2004
- October 26th, 2004 |
October
27th, 2004
- November 6th, 2004 |
November
7th, 2004
- November 16th, 2004 |
November
17th, 2004
- November 28th, 2004 |
December
1st, 2004
- December 12th, 2004 |
December
13th, 2004
- December 23rd, 2004 |
December
24th, 2004
- January 2nd, 2005 |
January
3rd, 2005
- January 12th, 2005 |
January
13th, 2005
- January 22nd, 2005 |
January
23rd, 2005
- Febraury 2nd, 2005 |
February
3rd, 2005
- Febraury 12th, 2005 |
February
14th, 2005
- Febraury 25th, 2005 |
February
26th, 2005
- March 10th, 2005 |
March
11th, 2005
- March 18th, 2005 |
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Winter
Diary Extract 2004 - 2005 |
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Sunday,
November 7th |
At - 31°C this morning the pups
couldn’t have cared less as they raced over the lake,
their faces all frosty. Blitz helped me with a few training
sled maintenance jobs this morning. I put him back with Spoons.
She asked, “What have you been doing?” He looked
at her and said, “Bloke stuff”. He makes me laugh,
he’s so serious but gets into all sorts of predicaments
that make him look so funny. Like rolling and tumbling getting
covered in powder snow.
I bought twenty whitefish from Albert, a Gwitch’in
Indian friend. Tomorrow I hope to head out and overnight with
the older dogs and return in the morning early enough to feed
the pups. The fish will be handy to supplement feed before
I tuck up for the night in my sled.
This time of year household freezers are shoved outside and
switched off. Freezers run at -22°C so there’s no
point paying electricity when it’s thirty below. |
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Monday,
November 8th |
Finished my morning run and took
time to look up at the sky. I’d noticed the northern lights
but it was the volume of stars that captured my attention and
how bright they were. Meteors shot across my view and fizzled
into black. It was very quiet but as always there was a feeling
I wasn’t alone. Wolves, foxes and lynx are all on the
move, spirits too if you believe in that sort of thing.
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Left late this evening with
Saxon, Thule and Judi’s Piper for an overnighter on
the Mackenzie River’s east channel. Made camp in darkness,
lay in my sled and a Wiggy’s
sleeping bag watching the moon’s last quarter and magnificent
northern lights. Saxon was beside me on the stakeout. Sat
on his haunches he looked aloft, just watching. I could only
imagine his interpretation. I soon fell asleep, warm. |
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Tuesday,
November 9th |
Woke, ate, hooked up the dogs and
was back in Inuvik by 9am ready to feed and walk out my puppies.
If they’d missed me I couldn’t tell. It was -32°C.
I walked to Albert’s cabin and asked him to save fish
for my dogs from his net set under the ice. He said, “Let’s
go check it now”. We axed and chiselled down at holes
either end of the net. I was careful to clear all ice splinters
away from the net landing area. At these temperatures the net
snags, freezes and with an inevitable yank gets ripped. All
clear we pulled it from under the ice clobbered everything dead
and reset the net ready for another inspection on Saturday.
By the time we were ready to go our twelve were frozen solid.
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Wednesday,
November 10th |
Ran myself early. Dark morning
for pup run with plenty of fresh snow to play in and back
for feeding. Ran adults for five hours. First time for Thule
up front alone. She was a complete bitch, messing around,
defiant with almost every command. Thing is I know she’s
very smart and is capable of leading. She’s worked in
tandem with her mother Chilly. She was an only pup and developed
into a female with defiant tendencies or spirit, whatever
you want to call it. Jo did warn me. Used to having plenty
of attention Thule will thrive from leading. I know she will
but I‘ve to persist until she gets it. She’s mentally
strong and dominant. Now it’s for me to positively channel
her strengths. |
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Thursday,
November 11th (Remembrance Day) |
Rested adults. I had an email
from a friend living in London. Alison described standing
on the new pedestrian bridge alongside Hungerford Bridge with
two Dakotas passing over releasing three million poppy petals
representing all those British soldiers who've died in conflict
since WW1.
She wrote, “It was amazingly silent considering it
was central London and you could hear the petals landing on
the water - very moving”. I bet two minutes later the
whole place was back to normal, angry and aggressive. It’s
also a dead cert the Dakotas will be loaded with even more
petals next year.
I take the puppies off the lake they play on during their
morning runs and down a little creek that has a great little
area to train them, individually. Today all three pups consistently
sit and stay.
Throughout each dog’s life feet will be repeatedly
monitored a million times over for ice build up in-between
toes or uneven wear of nails that can cause lameness. Most
of the time I’ll do this like grease lightening because
it’ll be cold and to stop means I get colder. I make
a game of playing with all ears, feet and mouths to make sure
dogs aren’t resilient to touch in these areas. Worming
a 75lb dog that doesn’t want its mouth handled is a
timewaster.
Axed a decent sized whitefish into three and supplemented
the adult’s feed with it. Despite being frozen these
blocks were devoured with slathering fangs within minutes
and eyes looking for more. |
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Friday,
November 12th |
Seriously
cold run this morning, - 42°C. First forty below day for
the puppies, they couldn’t have cared less.
Ran adults for two hours. Thule made some good moves. She
also made some hideous ones. I ignored this but made sure
she got it right in the end. It was very trying but I desperately
tried not to let it show and praised her for all her good
moves.
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Saturday,
November 13th |
Snowed all day. Rested adults.
Lots of puppy training down the little creek. Took Twizzle
on the east channel to buy more fish from Albert.
Baked bread on my wood stove and ate most of it before it
had time to cool down. |
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Sunday,
November 14th |
Rested adults. More walking and
playing on the lake for the puppies. We came across tracks where
a pack of wolves had crossed in the night. Continuing our walk
on to the east channel an Inuit gentleman pulled up on his snowmobile,
stopped, opened a tin of chewing tobacco, slipped some in his
mouth and spit out some juice. Spoons and Blitz weren’t
impressed. |
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Had Twizzle inside for an hour
until he shamed himself by pissing on my floor. The permafrost
shifted the pilings on my place this summer resulting in a
tilt. The wet ran straight into and soaked the bottom of my
flour sack. I didn’t thank Twizzle and sent him out.
The vet is in town. A thoroughly likeable guy, John
Overell has a surgery in Dawson City and takes two days
to drive here every two months. He runs a practice in Inuvik
for a week before heading south again. I had some questions
about feeding fish out of the Mackenzie River. Lucky I did
because he said it’s been found that Mackenzie River
whitefish tend to harbour a nasty strain of tapeworm that’s
very difficult to eradicate if fed to dogs. I think of my
own stomach. I’d found particularly fine eating until
now.
John gave good advice by saying, “It’s best to
worm a month after freeze-up, about now, and a month after
spring ice break-up, around May time. Worms lay staggering
amounts of eggs at this time giving their species greater
chance of survival”. I wished John a safe drive back
along the Dempster Highway. He won’t be back until January.
I treated myself to a large black cherry yoghurt I’d
bought last week. I appreciated the effort it had taken to
get it here. The effort was reciprocated in the price.
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Crack cocaine makes this week’s
headline in the 16-page community newspaper. Apparently cops
here are concerned about the ‘vigilante tone’
people are adopting as a more positive approach to punishing
dealers.
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Monday,
November 15th |
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I put Twizzle on the stakeout
for first time. He’s four and a half months old. |
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Tuesday,
November 16th |
I run on the Mackenzie River
ice for the first time this winter in the morning dark. I
followed a snow mobile trail with the aid of my head-torch
for half-an-hour before turning around. Before too long my
days will be 24-hour dark and my only trusted light source
training the dogs over good or bad ice will be my Petzl
head-torch powered by Energizer’s
lithium batteries.
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It’s the time of year
to switch over to new Asics
Motivator trainers and a full size bigger to accommodate for
more Horizon
socks. As always I slip in a new pair of Sorbothane
innersoles to keep me injury free. Rested adults, walked pups
and they helped me bring in some wood for my stove. |
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